Heidelberg, Germany

Guten Tag!

Ich bin in Deutschland, und mein deutsch ist nicht so gut. (Perhaps some of you will even correct me on that sentence...) Nearly everyone speaks English, in Heidelberg, at least, so I have been fine. Perhaps making the transition from 'Pardon' to 'Enschuldegung' was the only difficult thing. (And the fact that the z and y are in different places on the computer kezboard!)

Getting here bz train was a lot easier than the clerk in Paris made it out to be, so when I arrived at the train station for my original train from Geneva to Heidelberg, I decided to change mz itinerarz to take a different train, and eliminate about a day's worth of travel time! I stayed an extra night in France with Mel and Josh, (which was wonderful because we grilled burgers outside... yum, and how American!)

Since I had made a reservation for the train, I had my own little compartment, which was nice, except that I kept waiting for someone to come by with magical candy. (If you don't get that reference you better start reading HP ASAP bc the new book comes out very soon now. cough, Vic, cough.) Anyway, about half way through the trip a family joined me in the reserved compartment, and I don't think they realized I didn't speak German the whole time. They kept saying things and smiling, and I would smile, and that was the extent of it.

The hostel I am staying in is extremely different from the one in Paris. Perhaps it is bc it is a bit out of the way from the small city, (although only about a ten minute bus ride.) The hostel is huge, but it was completly empty on Sunday night. I was the only person in my room that had six beds. Last night two very nice girls from Norway were there, and after we had all gone to bed, a woman, probably in her fifties or sixties joined us in the room. She told us that her friend had decided to stay in their van, but then went right to bed, and was gone by morning...It was a little odd. Even stranger was that not only was there no one in my room the first night, but I never saw a single person in the hallways or in the huge bathroom with toilets and showers. I did see several school groups today, and there seemed to be some other groups in, so I get the impression that perhaps it is often used for camps or retreats and seminars. Also, the hostel is next to the Heidelberg Zoo, so it was a little unusual to hear wild animals at night.

Yesterday morning as I was waiting at the bus stop to go into the 'Aldstadt' old section of town, where nearly everything, (except for the zoo,) is, another guy staying at the hostel befriended me. He talked quite a bit, and was a little difficult to understand sometimes--he was from Quebec and had a rather strong accent--which was interesting because he bragged about how everyone thought he was from the States because of his "perfect accent"--I decided not to say anything. Among other things, he talked about his girlfriend in Helsinki, Finland, so that made me feel more comfortable... (and come on, who could miss my left hand... well, I suppose perhaps someone could as the ring I´m wearing here is no where near as perfect as my real one.) Anyway, he asked if he could join me to see the sights for the day, and he seemed nice enough, even if just slightly annoying, so I said of course. I will say that he certainly made the day amusing. He did about 99% of the talking and I really don't think he took a breath the entire morning or afternoon! He had very strong and definite opinions, which seemed based on some very inaccurate facts. Once I realized that I would never be able to convince him that you could, in fact, buy German Beer in the U.S., I gave up. There were a few times I considered trying to lose him, (which would not have been that difficult, seeing that I put myself in charge of the map and all directions,) but as I said, although annoying, he was actually a bit of humerous entertainment for the day.

I suppose some of you might actually been interested in what I saw though. We hiked up through "Philosopher's Way"\ "Philosophenweg," which was a great hike. With an extra 5 kilometers we could have gone to Bismark's tomb, but we opted to only go to his monument, which was a great view of the Castle and town on the other side of the river. We cut down through a tiny road with some amazing houses... not mansions, but still very large and they looked like they had actually been carved out of the mountain. We crossed over the Old Bridge which is one of the bridges that goes over the Neckar River; the river that cuts through the city. (I never really got a word in to explain to my new friend that it was actually not the "amaying Rhein.") We walked up the mountain to get to the Heidelberg Castle/Schloss. The castle is neat because it is about a third in ruins, a third rebuilt, and a third about a third of the way rebuilt. Oh, and there were different lions all over the front of it... what a great place. It will be interesting to compare it to other castles in Germany I will see later. After a meat, bread, and bier filled lunch we walked around the touristy area of the main street--Hauptstrasse. I finally managed some peace and quiet when I told my new friend that I was going to go to a cafe and read. Whew... it was a very enjoyable quiet for the rest of the day. I also went into the Heiligg Kirche, and they were having a free organ concert... which I listened to some of, but even outside the church you could hear it. There are tons of little kiosks selling trinkets to tourists all around the church. It was a beautiful evening and great for walking around town. All in all, Heidelberg reminds me of Colonial Williamsburg in many ways, with the Haupstrasse very much like DOG street... one end has the castle and the tourist attractions, and the other, (like Merchant's Square,) has all the modern shopping. At night though there are tons of students and people biking everywhere. It is really a great little city. I loved it!

One more thing I did was go to the Zoo, (this morning,) because it was right next to my hostel, and very cheap. I took lots of photos that I wanted to post here... so maybe I will be able to do that later. I spent my time at the Zoo thinking of how it reminded me of Rev. City, which made me slightly homesick. The seals were having a show at 4:00, but because it was only 12, they were just swimming around looking like they were not sure what to do before then...(perhaps they didn't have a program planned?) And of course there were lots of monkies... which made me miss all of you AI's! And the chimps seemed remarkably like AI's because they seemed like although they wanted to play in the back of their cage, all the visitors kept calling them closer to take their photos!! All this analzying... I must be turning into Goethe here;)

I will try to post photos as soons as I can, but I cannot download my photos onto a disk to put them on the blog from these computers.

So, by the way, does anyone want to fly into Amsterdam tomorrow to meet me? Neither Kristin nor Latoya will be there, but I'm sure someone wants to leave for the airport right now, buy a ticket on the spot, and join me. Matthew?

I miss everyone!
Tschuss!